2003.4.1 – where do you fit in?

Do you ever feel out of place, everywhere?

Lately, I have been visiting a coffeehouse, on my lunch break, that I used to hang out at when I was in college. I sit there, drink my coffee and read or write. This would be a relaxing experience but for the cold stares of the freaky deaky clientele.

The coffeehouse is across from U.B. – now being made infamous by MTV’s Sorority & Fraternity Life shows. Since I take a relatively late lunch (2 or 2:30pm), I am often in the midst of high school kids on their way home or students from the aforementioned college, skipping their 2 o’clock classes to play pool or shoot the proverbial shite.

Surrounded by these people I feel totally odd. I have lost touch with what I thought was my generation. In my job, I am required to wear suits, rather then the preferred uniform of angst.

At the point I begin to see the grounds in my coffee cup I pack up my stuff and head back to work. Pulling into the bank parking lot confronts me with the notion that I will again feel apart from my surroundings.

My hippie wool gloves, sweater and doc martens are not exactly what the “establishment” feels to be proper. Even in a suit, I still look less than the others. My beaded necklace and straight, center-parted hair are a little too left of center for corporate America. The fact that I am not trying to work my way up the ladder is a bit of a turnoff to my co-workers and superiours.

I realize now that I haven’t really fit anywhere since college. In the 6 years since graduation, my persona has skewed slightly from comfortable. This is what being a hippie is all about though. The ability to hold a decent conversation with pretty much anyone is overshadowed by the fact that I never quite look “correct” in any given place. At work I’m too liberal, while at the coffeehouse I appear conservative.

Comfort is obviously not an option at this point in my life. In two years I will be leaving my twenties and I will have to learn to be an adult. You would think that being 28 would afford me the tag of maturity by default, but that isn’t the case.

I still want to skip out on life to go have coffee.

I still want to drive around town with my stereo cranked up.

I still want to go to concerts, instead of work.

I still want to read for pleasure, rather than pay.

I want to be able to look at the world through rose tinted glasses and see my future as a canvas waiting to become a masterpiece.

With all this in mind, I leave behind a piece of me at that coffeehouse, in the hopes that whatever I choose to do next will be my destiny.

This lapse in columns has been brought to you by the leader in computers that crash, which will remain nameless for fear of lawsuits. I have installed the new hard drive and will be updating regularly once again!

Chat is always fun, so come visit me whenever you get a chance…Just click the chat link in any of our wonderful backwash communities!!

Peace,
Hippiegrrl

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